It Felt Like Home
by crystallized cherry
Summary: Annie always wondered how the 'real' home felt. People said it was a place where you could find the best warmth—so, was 'it' her definition of home? / AU /


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**It Felt Like Home**

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_Shingeki no Kyojin belongs to __Hajime Isayama__ I take no profit of this and all the characters inside. All of the purpose for making this is just for fun and entertaining._

Bertholdt Hoover/Annie Leonhardt, K+, Hurt/Comfort/Romance

© kazuka, august 1st, 2013

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_Annie always wondered how the 'real' home felt. People said it was a place where you could find the best warmth—so, was 'it' her definition of home?_

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Annie always wondered how the 'real' home felt. No, not a 'home' in the meaning of building which we could shelter ourselves under or something to protect people from cruelity of the world ... but something about warmth, about a place where we could find happiness that wouldn't be found easily outside. Or something about a little palace which built by two people called 'mom' and 'dad' who gave out their affection to their lovely children, giving the kids a comforting atmosphere.

But ... where would be that kind of home to find?

She kept asking, but no one could answer like what she wanted. It looked like that she should find it by herself so that the confusion could be revealed perfectly.

Some of her friends told that the 'home' was so beautiful, warm and gave us such a strange feeling that made us could never, ever think about finding another place to live under. Was it true? Once again, no one could not reveal her the true answer because it was not like a question of school exam, it was a question of life.

If it was the true definiton of home, then she should've been happy. At least she had experienced it once.

Just once; and it had never happened anymore. She almost couldn't feel it again, her heart almost classified as empty shell, it was too long after the last time that kind of happiness came to her life.

So, was 'that experience' her definition of 'home'? She didn't know exactly. But she hoped it was.

Might the same moment come once again for the sake of her heart so that she didn't have to be this desperate?

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Annie sipped the strawberry milkshake little by little as if she didn't want to leave the cafe soon. She loved for being there instead of her own home that felt like hell, like a trap where happiness was nowhere to be found.

Even though the cafe was small, it was far better than her big house where she couldn't find peace even just for a second inside.

Annie Leonhardt was a victim of her parents' broken bond. Her father was an engineer and her mother took a role as a lawyer. Both of them had the bad temperament, it looked like that fighting was their need whenever they met.

Annie once even thought that they got married just for the name of wealth, not for the love like she hoped for. Her mother filed for divorce three years ago and her father agreed without any second thought.

Her mother then married a rich man who owned a big hotel network, but it was not the end of hell. Heavenly peace of family was still too far from her when she found out that her step father was much like a dictator than a wise father she wanted of.

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Annie hated pink, actually. But she couldn't reject her craving for strawberry milkshake every time she had to tell the waiter what she wanted to order.

Why?

The past once gave her a beautiful memory between those nightmares.

It was her little childhood friend, a calm boy who she had always admiring for his amazing height. People might consider him as a cold and a-little-bit-lacking-of-self-confidence person, but Annie dared to bet all she had to prove that the others' judgement was all wrong.

He learnt a lot of culinary knowledge from his father—who worked at a five-star hotel. Among a lot of foods and drinks he let her to taste, she liked his strawberry milkshake the most.

With his curved lips whenever she gulped his handmade milkshake, she felt like that the drink had a unique power to wash away all of the fears she got. With his eyes meeting hers when she finished drinking, she knew she didn't that lonely.

And the conclusion of all of those comforting moments was ... she could find a warmth between the freezing ice cubes of his milkshake.

Bertholdt Hoover and his strawberry milkshake was her 'home'. It might be.

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That was why she got addicted to that girly-colored drink—she always loved it and later it could be specified as a craving.

Even though the milkshakes she ordered everyday in the different cafes were no like Bertholdt's, she didn't have any better choices. Because, at least, she could feel a step closer to the 'home' (her own definition of home, of course), to the atmosphere she had been always looking for.

Annie walked to different cafes whenever she had more spare time or more chances if her school tasks didn't prevent her to do so—just to find her 'home', her lifelong dream, her ideal state; the real definition of warm atmosphere people always talked of.

Bertholdt and his milkshake, of course.

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... Annie lost Bertholdt at the beginning of her another hell—when her mother got married to her second husband—and later Bertholdt told that he was going to follow his father's study in France for some years, while Annie had to move out from her old house, getting another life at Annie's step father's one. (A cruel life that she hated eventually.)

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She had to find Bertholdt again, in case if she wanted to live longer, because all of the pain she had been enduring was trying to eat up her happiness, her remaining spirit to continue living.

She had to find her home, so that she could protect herself from the harm of pains which attacked her everyday.

(Her home; Bertholdt and his milkshake.)

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It was a cold night when Annie was all alone in a basketball court near her favorite cafe, dribbling her orange ball slowly with right hand and resting her head above her left palm. She was thinking which cafe she hadn't visited yet so that she could make another bet that there might be a chance of Bertholdt working there. (They shared story about their goals before, which Bertholdt's made Annie confused; a handsome boy with sport talent wanted to be a man who worked in a cafe just to make sweet-favored drinks and foods?)

Or ... should she try visiting hotels and elite restaurants? Actually Bertholdt's dream was to work in a cafe to make a plenty of milkshakes everyday, but the opportunity which his mind had changed was still exist, wasn't it?

Finally she dragged her feet from the place she usually spent most of her day—if she didn't go exploring cafes around the town—hoping that Bertholdt had finished his journey abroad and went back here, pursuing his dream career like he always talked in the past.

She was on half of her way to the targetted cafe when a flat screen-TV in front of a shop was annoucing a shocking news.

"A car crashed the veranda of a hotel near the downtown, a single victim was found dead in location. His identity was still unclear since his face wounded hard due to the accident. All the police could find that he was a young chef in the hotel with surname 'Hoover' written on his uniform."

Annie's world stopped spinning. The reality before her successfully tossed her fragile self into another hell.

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"One strawberry milkshake, please," she ordered with lowered head, sitting in a rounded chair behind a bar—the regular seat was fulfilled already by couples who had their own lovey-dovey world (Annie hated to see them, for sure).

Annie swore that this was the very last milkshake she would order ever.

Annie was accustomed to struggling, bearing so much pains that hurted like hell, but this one is the worst. Hearing 'Hoover' mentioned in the news she accidentally heard was felt like her whole heart got burnt, turning into black ash which the wind brutally swept it away later, leaving hurting nothingness eventually.

There would be no home to look for anymore.

And she lost her reason to keep running on her hard, rocky road of life.

"This is special milkshake for you, Annie."

"Hoover! Look at the news! The victim has the same surname like yours! Who's that? Do you recognize him, the Hoover who worked at the biggest hotel in the town?"

Annie could hear panic sound of footsteps from the waiter before her, but she couldn't pay more attention—because ...

... She felt like got home.

The mild taste of milk got her questioning—was it the atmosphere she always looked for?

Sweetness of fresh strawberry left her stunning and couldn't blink her eyes; why did it taste so familiar?

(And literally she forgot the fact that her name had been mentioned when the waiter gave her the milkshake.)

"It's my cousin!" the 'Hoover' waiter took off his apron and ran to the kitchen. "I'm sorry, I have to end my shift soon, I should go to the hospital, he's my closest cousin, _senpai_!"

Annie drank the milkshake without any doubt, gulping as fast as she could do as if she just had a marathon race in a desert.

(That was the thirst of a calming atmosphere she always wanted to feel, a craving for a peaceful state that felt like the real definition of home.)

"Bertholdt!" she called, just when the boy stepped his feet out from kitchen with a bag on his left shoulder. The name gave her a special warmth she could not find anywhere, even with just calling it.

And she definitely got home.

With his smile she saw as she raised her head while embracing him, she could not think another place to live on.

With the remaining sweetness of his milkshake on her tongue, she knew that she finally understood the real definition of home, the atmosphere she had always dreamt of.

"Long time no see, Annie," Bertholdt caressed her shining blonde hair, giving her warmth.

_I miss you too, my home_—she closed her eyes, enjoying a faint whiff of delicate strawberry and milk in his right palm on her cheek.

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A/N: I got a confused at the beginning/prologue of the story. I don't know whether that part could be understood or not ...

And, well, I'm so sorry if I did a lot of mistakes. English wasn't my first language but I want to learn more with writing some English stories ... and idk how it turned to be but ... yeah, I'm trying. Thank you so much for reading. n_n


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